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I spent a better part of yesterday afternoon and evening aligning my Dynavector 20XL with my newly aquired MintLP mirrored protractor. I have to say I'm quite impressed with the results and some of them are surprising.In a nut-shell, here's where I'm noticing after several spins to make sure I'm really hearing what I'm hearing.
- Dramatic reduction in surface noise
- Much MUCH more focused imaging - center focus is much better and rock solid stable.
- Soundstage depth and width has improved, especially the depth.
- detail level in the bass is much more defined - which I wasn't expecting.I'm not noticing much difference in the high-end or in tracking, which is surprising to me. The 20XL tracks very very well though.
Overall I'm very impressed with the results and am perfectly satisfied with the outlay of $100 on this. In fact, I'd say it's a bargain.
I will say, it took a great deal of patience. I actually went through the exercise twice - I originally put the 20XL in the stock Technics headshell and aligned it - things sounded okay, but not great. I switched it out later in the evening to the LP Gear Zupreme headshell and started the process all over again. The Zupreme just sounds better to me although it requires the aux weight on my KAB SL-1200 and puts the counterweight pretty far from the pivot point. I feel I'm getting more detail and better imaging / soundstaging with the Zupreme - so it's staying.
The biggest piece of advice I can give on doing this is to take your time and read through the instructions carefully. Get it set as best you can, walk away from it for a half-hour, come back and recheck it, repeat until you're convinced it'd dead on.
It's painstaking, but well worth the effort!
Edits: 03/01/09Follow Ups:
Perhaps the reason, might be the resolution of the Mintlp Protractor is much finer than Ken's?
All I know, is you aren't going to do an alignment "by eye" with the Mintlp. You're going to need to use the Lighted magnifier, and the 10X Loupe.
One you finally achieve correct overhang, going back, and forth, until the Stylus perfectly traces the Arc, then one must align Zenith Angle. This of course means again placing fingers on Cartridge, to twist in the headshell, and when this is done, this can ever so slightly again knock off the overhang alignment.
You cannot see the two Null Grids on the Mintlp tractor with naked eye, they are that fine.
With Cantilever Alignment (Zenith Angle) one must insure they are aiming correctly, but the way Yip designed this tool, his grid leaves virtually no error for aiming, or parallax errors. Imagine if you will, when you sight the Cantilever on the Grid, that you are looking at a Thick Log (The Cantilever) lying in the center of a lined-striped two lane road. You will see the center line, and you will see the two lanes, with lines also at the outer sides of the lanes. Just ever so slight canting of the Zenith angle is quickly seen, but now comes the task of getting the Cantliever in proper position.
The level at which one is aligning with this tool is at a virtual microscopic level. This is leaps, and bounds beyond the cheaper Turntable Basics Grid. Mark
I can only comment that I believe your comments hold true against any paper protractor I've ever used. For instance, I, too, can not see the crosshairs the Mint protractor uses for aligning the stylus without the aid of a 10x loop. It's the most precise protractor I've ever used or seen.
So, your brain is telling you, it sounds better, it sounds better. Otherwise your a fool.
... it's not THAT expensive - and, no, it's not "all in my head".
Anyone who's spent more than a day seriously playing around with analog will know that proper alignment is paramount to achieving the best possible sound and that's exactly what this protrator has allowed me to do - achieve the best possible alignment that results in the best possible performance my cartridge is capable of on my table.
... I had to let him know table and arm I was running and it states that combination on the protractor.
That's what I guessed after a quick look at the site.
... spindle to pivot would be tied to the arm, I can't imagine anything other than spindle size being dictated by the table.
If there is a dramatic change, it should be perceptible in a good quality digital copy.
Dave
Later Gator,
Crank up your talking machine, grab a jar of your favorite "kick-back", sit down, relax, and let the good times roll
... and I'll see what I can do.
There are many changes one can make to their system that are hard to undo. Being able to evaluate both states after the fact gives you something other than your memory to fall back on. I think I'm going to follow my own advice and pick a track or two to record every time I change something. :)
With cartridge alignment, I think it's tricky because even a poor alignment may have one or two null points somewhere on the LP. At these particular points I would think the poor alignment would outperform the optimal alignment. Of course, the optimally aligned cartridge would perform best at its null points and would exhibit less distortion on average across a side.
In other words, I didn't think alignment could improve your best case scenario but rather it minimizes you worst case.
I am very very curious of how using the Mint protractor can help reducing surface noise?? Please educate me. Thanks!!!
Interesting as it may sound but I have always found resolution of surface noise to be an excellent test of improvements in your system. For example I recently changed the footers under my speakers and experienced a profound change in how surface noise appeared. As a rule higher, more appropriate resolution both increases the clarity of the noise (easier to resolve each crackle and pop) but also lifts it forward and out of the plane of the music so it can easily be ignored. So not a surprise to me that dialing in the cartridge has the same type of effect, plus of course any improvements from tracking in a part of the groove without noise
All in all I would stress that recusing the amount of surface noise may not always be a good thing but higher resolution allows you to listen through (and frankly not even notice) the noise much more readily
Perhaps the better alignment of the micro-ridge stylus with the groove???I don't know - but there's no question whatsoever that it's been reduced, and not by an insignificant amount.
This was not one of the benefits I was expecting. Better "focus", tracking, blah blah blah I was hoping for, reduction in surface noise was not one of the things I was expecting - nor was the higher level of definition I'm getting in the bass... but they're both there, no question about it.
Edits: 03/01/09 03/01/09 03/01/09
So the Mint protractor uses a totally different alignment scheme than Loefgren and Baewald, right?
according to Mint, it used Stevenson with the SL-1200 but I got the impression that the Baerwald, etc. alignment is used for other turntables. Each of the protractors is made specifically for the table it is intended to be used on. In other words, the one I purchased can only be used on a SL-1200.
I've used the Stevenson alignment on every Rega table I've ever owned - so I was familiar with it but I've got to say I've never had a cartridge sound this good before. I don't mean that lightly - the hours of getting it "just right" were worth it.
I'm curious why it took you "hours" to "get it just right". When I used Ken Willis' protractor last week to dial in my settings, it took me about 10 minutes or so to make sure the stylus was aligned correctly with the null points on the Baerwald arc. Why would it take so long using the Mint protractor?
This isn't an attempt at criticizing you, btw. I'd just like to know more about the process you're using.
this sounds like my Wally's Universial Tractor. You must use light, magnifying glass because the line is almost as fine as the stylus tip itself. It's so detailed that it usually take me 1-2 hours to get everything exact.
The crosshairs where you align the stylus tip are so small I literally can't see them without the aid of a 10x loop. The large 10x loop Mint provided as an option, by the way, I didn't find very helpful - I've got a smaller 10x loop that I used.With the mint, the lines are so fine that you're dialing the overhang and zenith in at the .001mm level according to the documentation accompanying the protractor - and I don't doubt that a bit looking at it. The lines on any paper protractor I've used are huge compared to the Mint.
The way it's designed - it forces you to align your eye precisely each time and it's repeatable due to the paralex effect of the fine lines. You are also forced to align to the cantilever, not the cartridge body.
I found that moving the zenith angle even slightly would result in often times throwing the overhang off by small amount and vice-versa. This resulted in A LOT of trial and error - going back and forth between adjusting zenith, then overhang, then zenith, etc. until it was just right on both accounts.
I'm not familiar with Ken's protractor - but the one I had been using before had a string that I aligned to the center of the pivot point to get the overhang right and then I would sight the cartridge body to the cross-lines. It took me on average maybe 15 minutes to do it by eye so I don't doubt you're able to align as best as possible using a paper protractor by eye.
I think the long and short of it is that this protractor is so much more precise that it forces you to take the amount of time necessary to get the cantilever aligned at the microscopic level - literally.
Edits: 03/02/09
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